


I Have Measured Out My Life

by qthelights



Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-05
Updated: 2008-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 07:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qthelights/pseuds/qthelights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coffee forms a thread through Jack's time on earth, right up to and including Ianto.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Have Measured Out My Life

He comes back to Earth to wait for the Doctor. But Jack’s never been very good at staying in one spot for long. He finds himself in Berlin and discovers the wonder of coffee in the afternoon. It gives the English morning tea a run for its money in his humble opinion. He quickly discovers a taste for the brew, and in the afternoons he has coffee with the _Frauen_ in the local _Kaffeehaus_. 

He winks and flirts outrageously and soon they include him in their lives, gaily chatting about the problems with their husbands and children and all manner of gossip women really oughtn’t share in the company of a strange man. Jack thinks the men really don’t know what they’re missing when they dismiss these _Kaffeeklatsch_. Even _he_ learns some things. He discovers that coffee is somewhat addictive, and he thinks that’s convenient seeing as he drinks it every day.

In the evenings he frequents the cafés and clubs around the university. The heated philosophical debates are intense and punctuated by outbursts of laughter and sarcasm. Jack plays devil’s advocate and only smiles at the youthful vehemence of those yet to live in the world they deconstructed. Young men and women, cheeks flushed with virtue and beer, provide hours of entertainment.

He makes a point of sitting next to the shy, quiet ones, who sit in the corner and enjoy the arguments from the sidelines. He takes them home and makes sure their cheeks bloom rose-pink like their louder outgoing classmates. His method doesn’t involve lively debate, though it certainly is lively.

* * *

In the 20s Jack leaves Torchwood after they try and make him the company assassin. Killing when he absolutely has to, or when he turns a blind eye to what happens in the cells, is one thing. Being directed to kill to a list and a time he draws the line at. He has _some_ honour after all.

He spends a few years in America at the height of prohibition. There’s still plenty of booze around if you know where to look. The delicious electric hum of a nation being naughty dances in the air, reflects in the sparkle of the pretty young flappers who shimmy to syncopated rhythms. They call him The Cat’s Pajamas and he holds court in the smokey jazz halls, surrounded by ruby-lipped beauties and dapperly dressed eager young men.

With alcohol harder to find, unless you frequent the countless speakeasies dotted around the cities, coffee sales have boomed. It’s the drink _du jour_ , and Jack enjoys every cup. He wakes, bathed in shards of sunlight that filter in through the grimy skylight of his loft, and often he is wrapped around something young, naked and pretty. It’s a welcome ritual, brewing coffee in the mornings as stockings are pulled up and fastened, or suspenders snapped into place. 

It’s meant to waken the senses, and it does. Rarely does Jack let a guest finish a cup before he’s pushing them back onto his bed, murmuring ridiculous things about bees and knees as he places kisses up pale inner thighs.

* * * 

He’s in London during the Second World War. Sort of. Torchwood finds out that the Doctor is to be back in town and hatches elaborate schemes to capture him. Jack finds himself locked in a cell where he yells himself hoarse and bloodies his fingers trying to scrabble a way out. They let him out when they fail to catch the Time Lord and Jack rushes to London, but he’s too late and the Doctor is already gone, taking a younger Jack with him.

Jack takes up where his former self left off. Pretending to be a foreigner isn’t always easy - his familiarity with the city’s layout is second nature - even in the dark with bombs falling from above. He covers any queries at this ease with ploys to find dark alleys to press bodies up against walls in. He has to remind himself that his former self did find dark alleys - _solely_ to press soldiers up against walls in.

He impresses his squadron with the instant coffee rations the Americans have been kitted with. Maxwell House goes over well with the fellow Brits. Algy particularly likes it, though he never does anything so crass as to admit he has an obsession with a beverage. Jack sees it in the dart of Algy’s eyes towards the kettle as they recover, panting and sweating, and tangled in the scratchy drab olive sheets bunched under them on Jack’s camp bed. He laughs and kisses bruised lips before leaping up to put the water on.

Sometimes they get to drink it before the sirens blare. Other times it ends up solidifying in the bottoms of tin cups.

* * *

In Paris, in the 80s, Jack freely embraces café culture, along with a few Parisians themselves. Technically, he is on assignment. In reality, he couldn’t care less about the goose-chase Torchwood has him on. 

He sips cappuccino along sidewalks in the mornings. Watches as tree-dappled sunshine flickers across the features of students as they cycle past, clad in garish geometric pastels or Benetton-coloured squiggles, squares and triangles. They always call a cheery _Salut! Ça va?_ He salutes them with a grin. 

Jack loves them all. The girls who pick apart their croissants with buttery fingertips, flicking ash to the ground from the cigarette perched delicately between their fingers. The young men that crowd around him scoff at his _Américanisme_ but hang on his every outrageous word. Their scruffy stubble and carefully grown goatees taunt Jack to lick and teeth-pull. The women who clatter past him in their colorful highest high-heels, their shoulders padded and bodies swamped in shapeless double-breasted suits that Jack wants nothing more than to unwrap. Small dogs sleep tethered to wrought-iron chair legs and table feet.

The espresso takes forever to arrive and he learns very quickly not to ask for a _café au lait_ or a latté – or really any kind of coffee with, _quelle horreur_ , milk. But it’s strong and slightly bitter and it’s brought to him by waiters in waistcoats and tight charcoal pants. 

* * *

When he takes over Torchwood Three, Jack settles in to stay awhile. His Doctor is getting closer to arriving, and he’s in charge now, he makes his own rules. No longer will he do the bidding of others. He becomes more virtuous, if such a word can even be applied to him he wonders - as if sensing the coming morality that was kick-started in him all those years ago.

Every morning he thanks whoever is in charge that Cardiff finally got a Starbucks. It isn’t the best coffee by any means, but it’s quick and hot and Jack can stumble there on autopilot after a night of no sleep. Or order his team to bring it to him on their way in. 

Ianto comes and with him comes fresh coffee. 

Jack has an endless supply of stimulant. Ianto, in tailored pewter pants and waistcoat, brings him mugs of hot black liquid on a tray with sugar and milk. He brings updates on what the team is doing and doesn’t back down when Jack debates the merits of torchwood philosophy. Jack enjoys firing him up, the usually quiet young man flushing pink with the earnestness of his argument.

Later, Jack takes to pressing Ianto down on his camp bed, kissing his lips into bee-stung ruby. He bites up Ianto’s inner thighs and murmurs nonsense behind his knees. Ianto laughs at him and jokes that Jack thinks himself the cat’s meow. Jack only lifts his head and grins glitteringly before leaning in to do more than bite.

The rift alarm often interrupts them and Jack swears but tries doggedly to ignore it until Ianto rolls his eyes and pulls him up. He snaps Jack’s braces back into place, kisses him soundly, and goes to make the coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from T.S. Eliot - "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"


End file.
